7970 getting stuck at 1x PCIE

crawlgsx

[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 12, 2008
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Everyone once and a while I load BF3 and my FPS SUCKS! So it happened today and I decided to open GPU-Z, and PCIE is at 1x instead of 16x .... ?

I'm on a fresh install fo windows with a fresh driver install (12.3)

I have no idea what is causing it. I didn't have that problem with my 6950 or 2 x 6770 or 2 x 550 TI.
 
I have the same symptom. Going to keep GPU-Z running so I can see if this is the cause.

If it is I could kiss you for noticing. This has been driving me nuts for the past few weeks.

EDIT: No performance problems right now. It will happen again eventually, I will follow up here when it does.
 
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I have the same symptom. Going to keep GPU-Z running so I can see if this is the cause.

If it is I could kiss you for noticing. This has been driving me nuts for the past few weeks.

EDIT: No performance problems right now. It will happen again eventually, I will follow up here when it does.

Keep me posted. It's driving me crazy, right now I am getting 40fps (where I normally have closer to 100fps) *sigh*

I noticed when it's in low power it clocks to x1 1.1, when its working properly I can do the render test (or even just open youtube) and its at 16x 2.0, but right now its stuck at 1x 2.0
 
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heh, closed my browser and reopened itand now its at 16. It appears something in the browser was locking it up??
 
heh, closed my browser and reopened itand now its at 16. It appears something in the browser was locking it up??
Closing Chrome and turning Overdrive on and off are two of the things I've been able to do to get it to stop. It does not always work.
 
I'm not sure we're having the same issue. I'm trying out some bitcoin mining, and this afternoon when I started up the client I was only getting 300 mhash/s vs the 650 I'd been getting last night. I checked GPU-Z and it said I was at 16x, PCIe 2.0. However I could tell from that mhash value and the fact that my GPU temp was low that it wasn't working very hard at all. I closed my Chrome window and suddenly it shot back up to 660 or so.

Random question: are you also watercooling?
 
Mine is an XFX Black Edition (not the one with the aftermarket cooler). I am also on a fresh install of Win7.

It just did it again. I was watching a youtube video and didn't notice my mhash had dropped to 300 until I glanced at my kill-a-watt and saw my power consumption had dropped radically. This time my GPU was clocked down to 500 MHz but the RAM was still at full speed. Closing Chrome fixed it again.
 
I remember a 2d/3d clock bug in the 5k series. Where if you were playing a video the card would run at 2d clocks, but if you fired up a 3d app at the same time, it would stay at 2d clocks. This sounds like something along the same lines.
 
Hit the little ? on the right side of GPU-Z..it explains it. Do the test...I had the same issue.
 
Hit the little ? on the right side of GPU-Z..it explains it. Do the test...I had the same issue.
Good point, maybe it only reduces to 1x after you've stopped playing. Have you confirmed it's at 1x during load?
 
I watched mine while in game.

Out of game (idleish) it sits at 1x, but says PCIE 1.1
In game NORMAL it says 16x PCIE 2.0
In game when its being stupid, it says 1x PCIE 2.0
 
I would try another PCI-E slot if that's the case then.
 
I would try another PCI-E slot if that's the case then.

I'm quite confident its not the pCIE slot since the previous 4 cards all worked fine on my motherboard. It appears to be something 7970/software related.
 
I'm quite confident its not the pCIE slot since the previous 4 cards all worked fine on my motherboard. It appears to be something 7970/software related.

Might be worth it to disable ULPS (total guess as to if this will help though). Trixx has an option in the GUI, but some people report it doesn't work so I used a .bat off this forum posting (you can download it in plain text so you know it's not anything bad) and while I still see my PCIE slot going to x8 1.1 when idle it always kicks back up when 3D speeds are enabled.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1088266/ulps-gui-config-utility-enable-disable
 
Try setting the pcie power saving under the windows power schemes to Max.performance. or no power savings whichever it says. I'm sorry but the exact wording escapes me.
Its with all the other power settings though.
 
It's a bug in the drivers.

I'm assuming that this problem NEVER happened in the original January 9th driver, or in the Supersampling Jan 24th (or around there) driver either.

The PCIE x1 problem first started happening in an early february driver, where certain monitors (usually through DVI-VGA adapter, though some older single link monitors too) would be always stuck at x1 PCIE link speed with the video card. Sometimes you could get it back to x16 by messing with overscan settings, but this obviously wouldn't work with VGA Adapters.

While the stuck PCIe x1 (not 1.1, btw) was fixed in the next driver, it has still been reported to reoccur, usually after power saving modes,, but I guess other things trigger it too.....
 
Same here.. i have two 7970, and all off a sudden my FPS was low in BF3, like i was running with one card only. saw that pcie on the second card was @ 1X

Now i cant even start BF3, and i see in GPU-Z that they switch between PCIe 1.1 and 2.0

Tried wiping my drivers completely, it didnt help.. Now i'm reinstalling BF3..

And this is on a fresh Windows install..

I have had nothing but trouble, stuttery bad gaming performance since i bought these card. i have never used so much money and at the same time having so much trouble..

I'm starting to get really frustrated about all of this....
 
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another idea is try disabling the PCI-e power saving feature in windows, it should be on by default. this may be whats causing the slot to go to 1x. not sure if it will work but its worth a shot since the option doesn't do anything anyways on desktops.
 
While gaming, GPU-Z is showing that my second 7970 is running PCIe 1.1, its actually switching between PCIe 2.0 and 1.1. is this a GPU-Z bug, or what? most of the time, it shows 1.1

The rendertest shows both @ 2.0

P8Z68 Deluxe/GEN3 and 7970 Crossfire
 
While gaming, GPU-Z is showing that my second 7970 is running PCIe 1.1, its actually switching between PCIe 2.0 and 1.1. is this a GPU-Z bug, or what? most of the time, it shows 1.1

The rendertest shows both @ 2.0

P8Z68 Deluxe/GEN3 and 7970 Crossfire

i think its a bug, i noticed it in a few reviews that were not using pci-e 3.0 boards as well as pci-e 3.0 boards which show up as pci-e 3.0 x16 @ x16 1.1 in gpu-z.
 
i think its a bug, i noticed it in a few reviews that were not using pci-e 3.0 boards as well as pci-e 3.0 boards which show up as pci-e 3.0 x16 @ x16 1.1 in gpu-z.

If it's doing that while they were not rendering, it's normal. It's part of the new power saving features AMD put in, at least, Tahiti and possibly the rest of the 28nm line. If it happens while doing 3D rendering, but not losing performance, then it might be a GPU-Z bug. But if it come with a dip in performance, you're looking at either a driver bug or some kind of motherboard/GPU compatibility issue. First thing to do would be update to the latest BIOS.

Idle:

Any 3D Load:

Note, my board only supports PCI-E 2.0.
 
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That is what mine looks like MOST of the time. Occasionally I will notice really low BF3 Frame rates and when I look at GPUZ it says 1x PCIE 2.0

I just did another clean format today, will see what happens.
 
That is what mine looks like MOST of the time. Occasionally I will notice really low BF3 Frame rates and when I look at GPUZ it says 1x PCIE 2.0

I just did another clean format today, will see what happens.

Are you Alt-Tabbing out to look at GPU-Z? If so, your card would downclock and enter 2D mode as soon as you switched back to the desktop. Could you try running BF3 in windowed mode at resolution low enough to allow you visual access to GPU-Z at the same time so you can see if still drops?
 
That was windowed mode, I tried a second monitor as well just to be sure (so that I could keep it open).

I reformatted, reset my bios, and installed clean 12.3 and so far it has not happened again. Will see how it goes.
 
This hasn't been an issue with me, but my GPU-Z looks the same as SicKlown's second pic, so I went into CP/Power Options/ advanced/ and the PCI-E power savings was set on disabled, even though "balanced" was the selected category. tbh, I'm not sure if I set it that way when I installed Win7 or it was done by some other software. this is on the driver from 11.12
 
When this happens to me the PCIe mode is not 1x. I think the mode going to 1x is just another symptom of the same problem I'm experiencing. In my case, it sees an active Chrome tab with a YouTube video and thinks there's no reason to clock up. In OP's case, it does the same and clocks the PCIe bus down to 1x.
 
Try checking to make sure primary video is set to pcie in the bios as supposed to pci etc..

Try another pcie slot
 
My PCI-E power management is set to off, however after my display shuts off the card is stuck at PCIE 1x.

This card might be going back in exchange for a GTX680 when they become available.
 
After running some benchmarks, I dont see a notable difference in performance after the monitor shuts off and gpu-z begins reporting pcie 1x... even though according to gpu-z it stays at 1x the whole time after PWM event.

Odd.
 
its not a bug. Its by design

turn off GPU acceleration in flash.

the UVD decoder requires fixed clocks and will overiide your 2d/3d clocks. Since it doednt require full PCIe bandwidth the Intel ME will drop the PCIe to save power.
 
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I noticed that too on my P8Z68-V Pro Gen3 7970 xfire setup. In CAT12.3 after the second GPU goes into ULPS and then running a 3D game, the PCi will go to x1 2.0 and i see that because I am on multiple monitors. Disabling ULPS fixes the PCI issue so now I get ok scaling but the second card draws massive amount of power when idling. AMD driver support sucks deep balls. This is what I learned in 6 days of debugging this hell.
 
its not a bug. Its by design

turn off GPU acceleration in flash.

the UVD decoder requires fixed clocks and will overiide your 2d/3d clocks. Since it doednt require full PCIe bandwidth the Intel ME will drop the PCIe to save power.
Well then I prefer nVidia's design decisions.
 
So i just got a 7950, and it seems like after letting my monitor sleep after 5 mins it gets stuck at 1x speed? using the 12.4 Drivers. Also it seems that mine gets stuck at PCIE 1x 1.1 and then changes to 2.0. If i adjust my resolution it fixes it to the 16x link, and when not in use after the fix it goes to 16x at 1.1. WTF is this why would i had to adjust my resolution just because my monitor went to sleep to get the shit to go at the right speed
 
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